by Amber Lin
He let out a stream of incoherent curses, promising all manner of retribution upon Luke, his mother, any pets he might or might not have. But when Todd turned to me and our eyes met, I knew exactly how he meant to exact revenge.
Still holding the gun, he spread his arms wide. “I know what will make me feel better after this. We’ll have a party. And your girl will be our main attraction.”
“Try it,” Luke snarled. “And count how many breaths you have left.”
Despite his clear disadvantage, his words seemed to give Todd pause and me too. There was something unbreakable about him then, as if a bullet couldn’t stop him. It was only his will, his decision to stand there instead of beating Todd to a bloody pulp, that kept him safe. Todd seemed to think this over while wiping a dribbling line of blood from his brow. He looked around, as if aware that everyone in the room was watching us—far too many witnesses to keep quiet, far too much bother to rape and murder us for what amounted to a barroom brawl.
“Get your bitch and get out,” he said. “I never want to see you back here.”
I seemed to have been rooted to the spot, but Luke grabbed my arm and pulled me from the club. Cold night air slashed at my sweated skin and seeped into my bones. The streetlamps blurred before my eyes, as if I watched them through a car window on the freeway instead of stumbling down the street away from the club. My limbs felt like lead. I remembered this feeling from once before. My brain was filled with white dewy mist. Ah, shock. That was it. Knowing its name didn’t lift the fog. If anything, I sank deeper. Nothing could touch me here. No one could.
At least Luke seemed to have all his faculties, buckling me into the car. His hands were smooth as they tucked my hair behind my ear. He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Close your eyes. We’ll be home soon.”
Only when I felt the car move did I realize I had followed his instructions. I kept them closed, luxuriating in the cottony comfort. We were safe; that much I knew. And really, wasn’t that all I’d ever wanted for us? Safe and together.
Whether minutes or hours passed, I didn’t know, but I felt the car slow to a halt. I opened my eyes, and first things I saw were trees. I squinted. Where were we, a park? Luke circled the car and let me out. Then I saw the cottage. In the twilight, dark crisscross beams could be seen shadow-framing the cottage, and a dark leafy carpet blanketed the side. I hadn’t been sure what he’d meant by home, but it sure as hell wasn’t this. “What is this place?”
“A safe house.”
I grew alarmed. “The CPD?”
“No,” he said shortly. “It’s mine.”
“She’s mine,” he had said to Todd. All part of the game that had almost blown up in our faces.
It was too dark to see inside properly, even with the small table-side lamp Luke switched on. I registered vague, ranch-style furniture crowding the small living space. It all looked very ordinary, as if a sleepy-headed child might wander out for a glass of water. But maybe that was what made it a safe house. Not just its location as a hideout, but its ability to bring ease to the people who stayed here.
Luke prepared a cup of tea for me and coffee for himself. I warmed my hands on the bowled mug and took a sip.
At length, I asked the question that had sat on the tip of my tongue all this time. “Do you regret it?”
He leaned back in the wood-and-wicker armchair he’d chosen and closed his eyes. A lock of golden-brown hair fell across his forehead, softening the hard, chiseled lines of his face.
“I should. I can’t. He deserved every fucking bruise.”
I dipped my pinkie finger into the scalding tea, then brought the wobbly drop to my lips. “Still. He might have had information. You might have found her.”
“He didn’t know anything. Not anything current, anyway.”
I shrugged. “I would have done it. In case you were wondering.”
“Done what?”
“I would have fucked him if you’d asked me to. So he would tell what he knew. So that you could find her.”
His eyes snapped open, glowing green in the dim light, like a cheetah ready to hunt. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“I know she’s important to you.”
“Did you know about her? You don’t seem surprised.”
“I had an idea.” More like Jade spelling it out for me. There had been other clues, but a girl would go to great mental lengths for love—even the doomed kind.
He reached forward and set his coffee mug on the side table, then rested his elbows on his knees, his head down. “Daisy is my sister. Was my sister. Three years younger. Though she probably isn’t alive anymore, I’ve never been able to make myself accept that.”
“Your sister?” Of course it shouldn’t bring me any happiness, knowing that his sister had been a prostitute, that she was likely dead, and yet pure inappropriate relief flooded me. This was exactly the sort of selfish response that made me unsuitable for him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What for? You were my informant, at great risk to yourself. Then before you had even fully recovered from the gunshot, you were on the run. I owed you my help, not the other way around.”
He glanced up, his gaze hooded—and tired. He needed sleep. And possibly medical attention.
I stood and found an ice pack in the freezer and placed it against his temple. He winced, then pushed it more firmly against the swelling there, taking it from me. I sat again, trying to order my thoughts. He had been searching for his sister all this time. Contrary to my impassioned imaginings, the discovery didn’t diminish his integrity—it strengthened it. Any prostitute who denied ever having a white-knight fantasy was lying. And here he was, loyal to her cause. Considering she was his sister, he wouldn’t even expect sex in gratitude. The savior scenario didn’t get better than that.
“I could have helped you,” I said. “That’s why you were so invested in us girls, right? You were looking for her. I could have helped.”
“I didn’t want you to,” he said, so fiercely I blinked. Then, “That wasn’t why I was so invested, okay? Yes, I’ve been looking for her, but that didn’t have anything to do with us.”
Sadly, I thought it had everything to do with us. He never would have met me if he hadn’t been so bent on finding his sister. He wouldn’t have gone after the pimps…Henri, especially.
“Was she with Henri?” I asked, incredulous.
After a pause, he admitted, “I think so.”
So we were back to this. It was a small comfort that he didn’t feel romantic love for this girl, but she was his goal all the same. I was merely a means to an end. Something to use and discard. And he was just another man to use me. How unoriginal of him.
Well, far be it for me to let him down. “Tell me about her. Something other than the fact that she’s a natural blonde. Maybe I’ve met her.”
He scowled. “Stop it. Stop using that voice with me.”
“My helpful voice?”
“The one you use with johns. The one that sounds sweet and subservient, unless they know you. Then it says you despise them.”
I did despise him. I despised him for seeing me, for knowing me, exactly as he had so arrogantly claimed to in the alley.
“Fine,” I said brusquely. “This is me. My regular voice. My pissed-off voice, actually. Better?”
A smile tilted his split lips. “Better.”
“So tell me. Tell me about your sister.”
He sobered. “Blonde hair. Hazel eyes. They change by the light. Blue in the sun, brown in the dark. Five feet six, a hundred twenty pounds, although those measurements may be wildly different, even assuming…”
Assuming she was alive. “There’s no chance, then?”
His eyes grew distant. “It was so many years ago. Long enough to come to terms with it, long enough to give up the ghost. As a cop, I can figure out the facts, same as if it were a case. She’s likely dead. If she’s alive, she’s probably not in Chicago anymore.”
“What makes you say
that?”
“Because I’ve looked. Everywhere.” He ran his hands through his hair, then hissed out a breath as he found a sore spot. “I can’t let her go. I can’t shake the feeling that she’s here, right outside my grasp. But I have to accept that she’s gone. All I’m doing now is investigating her death. If she were here, and if she were alive, I would have found her by now.”
“There’s one other option you left out.”
Green eyes locked on mine. “What’s that?”
It occurred to me, because it hit upon my own hidden desire. If she was alive, if she was in Chicago… “She may not want to be found.”
Chapter Eleven
Luke reclined on the chair, stress wrinkling the skin between his brows. I knew he was thinking about his sister. I wished I could help, though if I knew for sure she had overdosed or met some other grisly fate, I wasn’t sure I could tell him. It didn’t matter because his description of her matched half the prostitutes I’d ever met. Even Jenny, from the blowout at the corporate party, fit the physical description.
Except she was too young, and so was I. With the beginnings of leathery skin and crinkles at his eyes when he smiled, Luke was in his midthirties. At thirty, his sister would be ancient in the realm of prostitution. If I had met a woman that old working for Henri, I would have remembered.
But I hadn’t. “I’m sorry.”
“I know it’s too late to help her. I just wish I knew what happened to her. Then maybe I could… ”
“Avenge her?”
His lids were hooded. “Maybe I could move on.”
A shiver ran through me, a sense of camaraderie. That was what I wanted too—for myself. Both of us were trapped by the ghosts of our pasts, him by his sister and me by my father.
“What then?” I asked. “Would you still work for the CPD?”
He shrugged. “Being a cop is all I know, but the only reason I became one was to find Daisy. I couldn’t get them to help me, to care about her. So I figured if I was on the inside, I could look for her myself. I didn’t understand then how many girls go missing, how little time there is. You can’t do this job and get choked up about every little injustice. I turned into the cops I hated. Putting in my hours and, at the end of the day, barely making a difference.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You did a lot for me. You were the one who convinced me to quit.”
He laughed sharply. “Some good that did you.”
“Hey, things aren’t so bad.” As I spoke the words, I realized they were true. This cottage felt like it was a million miles from civilization—and from danger. In the whole world, there was only the two of us. The darkness and distance wove a cocoon around us, keeping the scary predators and unkind world out of sight and out of mind.
“How long can we stay here?” I asked.
He shrugged. “From my talk with Todd, it’s clear Henri has gone to ground. I have a few people who can help me with tracking him down, but I can coordinate that from here. It’s a secure location, completely untraceable. We can stay here until we find him.”
I thought of Henri’s new hideout, the Barracks. But if I told Luke, we would have to leave. If I told him, the cocoon would dissolve. Henri would still be there a week from now, but I would never have this chance again. Of course, it was selfish. This wasn’t just about me or Claire. Luke wanted to take Henri down for reasons of his own. He might finally get closure on his sister. He certainly wouldn’t thank me for withholding information that could help. But I couldn’t make myself say the words. I couldn’t destroy the one thing I had longed for.
I looked away, as if the lie of omission were written in my eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You didn’t get hurt in the fight, did you?”
I swallowed my guilt. “No, I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
He stood. “Sure, let me show you the bedroom.”
He led me to a small room, which had a large bed and an oak side table and dresser. Across the bed, a ruffled bedspread with large white flowers was both ostentatious and humble at the same time. Matching drapes covered the windows.
“It came with the place,” he said from behind me. “In case you were thinking of mocking me.”
“It suits you.”
“I have always felt that about magnolias.”
“I meant the ruffles.”
“Thanks. At least the bed is comfortable. The bathroom is down the hall, so I’ll let you use that before you turn in. I keep spare toothbrushes and everything else in the cabinet.”
Exhausted, I only planned to wash up in the sink, but the prospect of a bath was too alluring. The tub was bare, no shower curtain and no drain stopper. I indulged in a hot shower instead, spilling water over the side and feeling guilty for using this much hot water. I cleaned the greasy residue from my hair, reveling in the bitter-soap scent I recognized from Luke. It was harsh stuff, the kind that took my skin off as it cleaned, but I appreciated its strength. The residue of my sins went too deep for regular soap.
A small pile of neatly folded clothes waited for me outside the door. A man’s white undershirt and a pair of boxers. Well, that answered the boxers-or-briefs question. I rolled the waist until it promised to stay on me, while the shirt draped over me. Luke didn’t look like a large man from far away, mostly due to his leanness. But up close he was tall and filled out with muscle. His was a deceptive power, which made me adore him even more.
I found him in the bedroom, turning down the thick blankets. He stepped back when I came inside. Would we have sex here tonight? Almost as if I had voiced the question, he answered.
“I’m sleeping on the couch.”
“Oh.” I slipped past him and climbed into bed. It was a relief, the lack of expectation. So why did my stomach feel so hollow?
I thought for a moment he might tuck me in, maybe even sit on the bed, and I realized with alarm that I might fall apart if he did. Already, with him just standing beside the bed, my heart rate had increased. Heavy blankets, in the dark, couldn’t breathe.
He turned and left without a word.
My eyes slid shut. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. My clothes and makeup and sultry sarcasm were all part of my armor, but here they were stripped away. Just me, as lonely and scared as I had been at sixteen, desperate to get out of my father’s house.
From the bathroom, I heard the shower turn on. I imagined him under the spray, rivulets of sweat and dirt running over roughened skin. I pictured the pleasure on his face as hot water soothed the tension in his muscles.
I stared at the little dots on the ceiling, wondering how I could have been so tired before but so awake now. How just knowing he was naked had drained all the sleep from my body.
I heard a groan from the bathroom. Or had I? It was hard to tell over the rush of the shower. What if he had been really hurt? He might need my help.
Pushing the covers back, I slipped from the bed. The carpet was thin and brown, as if I walked on a soft dirt path. The bathroom door was open a crack. I pushed it a little farther.
The overhead light blinded me for a minute until my eyes adjusted. Luke stood in the shower, facing away from the spigot, letting the water beat his back. One of his hands was on the wall, supporting his weight. The other was on his cock, thick and long and clearly right in the middle of something. Something dirty, something private—I couldn’t look away.
His eyes were shut, his entire face tight in concentration. What did he think of? Who?
He moaned again, and it was so clearly a sound of pleasure. How could I have missed it? Maybe I had known all along. Maybe I had come here to see this, to press my nose against the window and dream of the future.
He fisted his cock, slow and easy, and I found myself storing that information away for a future when I would use it—this was how he liked to be touched.
His whole body glistened, his chest and arms adorned with glimmering droplets while swaths of steaming water ran down his back and legs. I wondered if
the water slipped between them, caressing his tender sac as a warm tongue might do.
As I would have, if he had come to me. And yet I couldn’t be bitter, not to watch this. Like watching a tornado, so self-contained in its strength, so natural in its glory, and I wanted it to sweep me away. I wanted him to let me in. I wanted so badly to know what he was thinking.
“Shelly,” came out on a breath.
At least I thought he said my name. It wafted to me on the thick, moist air. I couldn’t be sure if it was my wishful thinking, until he said it again. He mumbled it this time, and I imagined it was more than a fleeting thought, that he was looking at me, speaking to me. My gaze snapped back to his face, but his eyes were still shut. If he saw me at all, it was in his mind. A specter with my body but none of my issues, one who didn’t freeze up when a man stood by the bed. It was that Shelly he spoke to, that one he wanted.
He stroked himself faster, and my body responded with heat of its own, dampening and softening as if he were already inside me, preparing my body so that his size and his speed wouldn’t damage me. The human body was an amazing thing that way. The mind, not so much. As he came on the tile wall, my body twinged, but all I could think was—not for me.
He wanted me enough to speak my name, but he’d chosen the fantasy of me instead. Smart man. Self-disgust curdled any lingering arousal.
Returning to the plush comfort of the bed, I listened as the shower squeaked off, as he brushed his teeth and dressed. The bathroom door opened all the way, draping yellow light over me before he flicked it off. I waited for his footsteps to move away, to settle into the couch in the next room. Instead his dark silhouette remained in the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms crossed.
